Why Google chose to give the Nexus 7 the phone version of Android

The Nexus 7 was practically announced at CES in January, but a few things changed by the time Google officially announced it a week ago. Being the launch platform for Android 4.1 Jelly Bean was definitely one of those things, and another was the fact that the Nexus 7 isn’t really a tablet – it’s a 7-inch media player.

To clarify, the Nexus 7 is running the phone version of Android. This is most easily noticeable by looking at the status bar, which is split into a button bar at the bottom and a status bar at the top, the latter of which you pull down to access the new notifications in Jelly Bean. Tablets on the other hand merge these two into a single bar at the bottom, which has buttons on the left and a system tray on the right, where you can click the clock area to bring up an expanded status menu that shares at least some similarities to the notification bar on phones.

Like phones, and very much unlike tablets, the Nexus 7 is also locked to portrait mode while on the home screen, unless you replace the launcher. Put simply, it’s a 7-inch phone without the phone parts, making it a 7-inch media player that has a lot in common with devices like the Samsung Galaxy Player.

So why did Google choose to make its own tablet a not-tablet? Owning a 7-inch Android tablet that is actually a tablet, I think I can answer that: Android’s tablet UI was never designed for 7-inch devices. Literally, since the initial Honeycomb 3.0 and 3.1 releases didn’t work on screens that small, there was a months-long wait for 7-inch tablets that coincided with the Android 3.2 release. Perhaps the most famous example is the HTC Flyer, which released with Gingerbread.

Even now that it’s technically supported, 7-inch Android devices are tricky. Notifications are a major pain on some devices, because the tablet UI puts individual notifications in the status bar for each notification. Try updating a couple of dozen apps on Honeycomb – I dare you. You’ll end up rebooting the device to get rid of the notifications. With these notification icons on the status bar you’re also limited as to how many you can display at a time, which is a real pain in portrait mode on 1024 x 600 pixel 7-inch devices running with a virtual PPI of 160, as you basically have room for two such icons, and then the rest are hidden. All in all, it’s a pain to deal with notifications on tablets.

Since notifications are a big deal in Jelly Bean, I understand Google perfectly for wanting its showroom device to show the best version of that notification system. While it has been confirmed that the new notifications work to some degree using the tablet UI, I don’t think I’m being too subjective when I say that people will prefer the drag-down menu from the phone version.

As for the rotation, 7-inch devices really do work the best in portrait mode if you ask me. Their size makes them very book-like, which again means they’re perfect for reading books, comics, magazines. It was no surprise that Amazon chose the 7-inch form factor for the Fire, but unfortunately it cut costs in one area it shouldn’t have: the resolution. I have been reading papers, documents, and magazines on mobile devices since the 400Mhz 480 x 800 pixel Nokia N800, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms that 768 x 1024 pixels is the absolute lowest resolution you can read A4 formatted content without zooming and panning. The Kindle Fire is 600 x 1024, which is simply too low, and that’s been one of the device’s biggest complaints. The Nexus 7 is fronting the Google Play magazine offering, and I can almost guarantee you that if it hadn’t been for that feature, the Nexus 7’s screen would have been 600 x 1024 as well, to save costs.

When you sum all this up, it makes sense for the Nexus 7 to be sold as a portrait device. It’s a digital book, and rightly so. Having both a 9.7-inch iPad 2 and a 7-inch Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, I’m in the camp that believes that 7-inch tablets are different enough from 10-inch ones to justify their existence, and I even hope that the rumors of a 7-inch iPad are true.

About the Author

Andreas Ødegård was an associate editor at Pocketables. He's more interested in aftermarket (and user created) software and hardware than chasing the latest gadgets and tends to stick with his choice of device for a long time as a result of that. Currently that includes an iPad mini and a Samsung Galaxy S II.

Frank

It makes total sense, but I’m not sure there’s a clear delineation between tablet/phone version of the OS… I imagine that’s something you alluded to for the purpose of the article (which really centers more around launcher UI than anything else). AFAIK the Nexus 7 still runs the tablet version of several apps w/multiple panes and such, rather than the phone versions. Am I alone in wanting a current gen 8.9″ tablet tho? I find 7″ kinda small when I’m already toting a large 4.65″ phone and 10″ kinda large (particularly in bed or if I’m also carrying a laptop). I’m living w/the original TF right now but I’ll probably try a smaller tablet whenever I upgrade…

Andreas Ødegård

I guess it depends on the user. Personally I prefer the phone status bar, although only if the device doesn’t have on-screen buttons. I think the tablet bar is a bit more iconic in landscape mode, the phone system seems to work best in portrait.

Andreas Ødegård

Oh and I’d definitely like to see a better 8.9 out there. I guess there’s the Xyboard 8.2, but I’m not a huge fun of Motorola. I would frankly prefer an 8.9 over a 10.1, but seeing as though 7.7. is the only size with AMOLED tablets right now, I think I’d still go with that over 7, 8.9, and 10.1.

Frank

Notifications are not that big a deal on a 10″ tablet on ICS btw, you can just quickly swipe them away… I mean yeah if you let app updates pile up or something you might have to swipe a dozen times in a row, but even then it’s not a big deal. I imagine they’ll add a clear all button on JB or later. The fact that you have stuff going on in all four corners of the launcher is probably more troublesome for the first time user (search upper left, apps upper right, notifications/settings lower right, nav buttons lower left).

Andreas Ødegård

Currently looking forward to ICS on my 7.0 Plus for that reason. There isn’t a whole lot of development going on for that Tab, so there isn’t any fully functional ICS ROMs out that I’m aware of. It’s supposed to be getting ICS officially though, so holding out for that. Currently running my tab at 130PPI to make the entire UI smaller and fit more in there, which includes more spots for notification icons.

JohnnyL

I was always under the impression that Android 3.0 and up were supposed to be both a tablet and phone OS. It’s a little disconcerting that it seems to still seems to be a little rough around the edges when it comes to handling different display sizes. Now that we up to 4.0+ and 7″ tablets have been around since the beginning I would think this would have been an area that would have seen a little more UI polishing.

Andreas Ødegård

Actually 4.0 and up is a combined OS, whereas 3.X is tablets only. Even in 4.0 though, there’s a difference in how it looks on a phone vs a tablet. It comes down to two things: How the status/button bars look, and what mode apps run in. YouTube, for instance, displays very differently on a tablet VS a phone. More on this here: http://www.pocketables.com/2012/05/this-is-why-people-want-tablet-mode-on-their-phones-2.html
On the Nexus 7’s case, it seems as though Google has made it a tablet/phone hybrid, mixing the two. Much like the Paranoidandroid custom rom, just without the user configuration.